Knowledge center

SMART MOBILITYIntegrated Corridor Management Have you ever wondered how can you reduce the time or the fuel wasted in traffic jams? Integrated Corridor Management can be a solution. This tool can show you the best way to work or home, which not just saves your time, but the Earth as well. Integrated Corridor Management (ICM), considered in the context of Advanced Traffic Management Systems (ATMS), offers a broad while complex operation concept for improving travel efficiency, system reliability, and traffic safety for transportation corridor. The broadness of ICM is due to its versatile formations and strategies supported by the ITS technologies. Its complexity involves those from the sub-systems embedded, as well as the integration and synchronization of all the managements and performances of these sub-systems as a whole. The goal of ICM is to improve a corridor’s level of service, including efficiency, reliability, and safety, by a more effective use of its infrastructure. The happy people of San Diego and Dallas can experience the benefits of the ICM and it is planned to be introduced in other US cities as well.

SMART GOVERNANCEOpen Stockholm Award Sweden has been well known for its good governance, democratic leaders and information sharing. For one of them the Open Stockholm is an example: in this competition citizens can show how they make useful information available. Providing information to the habitants is considered to be an important issue by the leaders of the Swedish capital. Their opinion is that reading facts about the city or analyzing data can inspire people to create new business and offer new services. They try to publish this information and data via new technologies, but how? They launched the Open Stockholm competition, where the participants can show how they make information and data available. The winner of the "Best App Idea" category was a mobile app where Stockholm citizens could get involved in local democracy, through following current road constructions and have their say about the city's urban environment”. And in the "Best Innovative App" category the winner was a program that provides extensive information and interesting facts about Stockholm and its various districts, allowing you to find information about schools, health care and entertainment so that you can choose the part of town that best suits you and your needs.

SMART ECONOMYLiving labs Do you have creative ideas? Can you imagine yourself as an entrepreneur, but don’t you know how to do the first step? Living Labs are the place where you can share your ideas and get help to start or improve your company. The Living Lab of Gran Canaria has the goal to help entrepreneur especially those who works in the tourism sector or have small shops in the island, to develop their business. They organize both local and international events. At the latest local event the role of Facebook in business was discussed, in order to get closer to consumers. They also launched an annual event: a fair trade to study the importance of tourism in national level plus they also have a gamification project. Finally, their new issue is to become a member of the European Network of Living Labs. This way they could participate in international projects and get inspired by new ideas of other European citizens.

SMART PEOPLEGrater Halifax They say immigrants make the culture and economy more colorful – this is the reason why their inclusion is a crucial question. The smart city of Halifax has started its connector program to help foreign people start their own business. This program gives the opportunity to get to know new businessmen and collect important information about establishing a company. In the first step immigrants must register online, and then the program coordinator offers him or her a “connector” person. After that a meeting comes, where the immigrant must ask for other possible connectors, acknowledged at that special field. This way he or she has enough connections to choose the best helper for himself or herself. The program is opened not just for immigrants, but for international students and emerging, young talented people, who are looking for opportunities. Plus, it wasn’t created only for entrepreneurs, but for those who are looking for a job.

SMART LIVINGSafe & Equal Opportunities Do you know why Ljubljana won this year’s Smart City Award in Smart Living category? With the help of their new project they made the city safer and created equal opportunities. The city of Ljubljana in collaboration with LPP (the public transport service company) via internet and mobile application shares information about the safe roads of the city. This helps parents to plan their child’s safe way to school and also people with special needs to get involved to the use of public transport and be mobile. You can get information about dangerous crosses, unsafe and safe routs with traffic lamps around schools and kindergartens. As for disabled people a door-to-door service is offered. By making a phone call, they can “order” a bus that picks up him or her at home. Of course this will make the journey longer for other passengers, but they are given information about this, so they have the choice to go by other bus.

SMART ENVIRONMENTGreen Policy Vancouver has been dealing with environmental issues for a long time and the world is curious about its achievements. Its brand new, ambitious plan is to reduce the emission of dangerous gases by 33% until 2020. Every second year there is a competition organized by the World Green Building Council, where cities can compete for the “greenest city” title. This year’s winner was the Green City 2020 Action Plan, elaborated and started by Vancouver. The two main points of the plan were the following: All new buildings to be carbon neutral in operations by 2020, and existing buildings to reduce energy use and greenhouse gas emissions by 20% by 2020. For this reason a retrofit policy has been implemented that applies to all buildings seeking a renovation permit. approximately 2,500 projects per year will be required to make energy efficiency upgrades during renovations, a Unique feature of this policy. Furthermore, the plan includes the reduction of water consumption, waste, and use of cars.